Version 6.0 has been developed specifically to help customers comply with e-discovery requirements established by amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that are scheduled to take effect Dec. 1. The rules set requirements for companies producing electronic evidence, such as e-mail or instant messages, in lawsuits.

Discovery Accelerator 6.0 is one component of the new Symantec Messaging Retention and Discovery program, which also includes: a partnership with e-discovery law firm Redgrave Daley Ragan & Wagner LLP; a software and services partnership with RenewData to restore and migrate historical data from backup tapes and legacy archives to a single searchable archive; and a technology partner program to integrate legal software tools from the likes of Clearwell, CT Summation, Ibis Consulting and MetaLINCS with Discovery Accelerator 6.0.

"Organizations across all industries will have to revamp their e-discovery strategies to comply with the amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure," Francis deSouza, Symantec's vice president of Enterprise Messaging Management solutions, said in a statement. "IT departments need to prepare for strict requirements around the preservation of data prior to and during litigation, mindful of the sanctions and fines that can result from poor procedures."

Symantec's Messaging Retention and Discovery program will help customers "fulfill their legal obligation and significantly reduce the time and costs of doing so," deSouza said.

One significant provision in the upcoming amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure demands the preservation of data during the course of litigation, also known as the legal hold requirement. Symantec said Discovery Accelerator 6.0 creates automated legal holds to ensure that all e-mails, instant messages, files and other content relevant to a specific case or cases are not deleted as part of an organization's standard records retention and deletion schedule.

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Symantec said Discovery Accelerator holds relevant data without requiring an entire company's dataset to be put on hold, and without requiring manual effort by end users. Version 6.0 also features enhanced search capabilities and an ability to produce e-mail, IM, files and other content in their native formats, also a requirement of the new regulations.

Symantec noted that an Enterprise Strategy Group survey of organizations that have been through an electronic discovery in the past 12 months found that more than 75 percent were forced to produce e-mail as part of the discovery process.